Print the Grade Center

I made a quick video to show you two options for printing the Grade Center.

Method 1:  Create a report from within Blackboard's Grade Center
Control Panel > Grade Center > Full Grade Center > Reports > Create Report

Method 2:  Download the Grade Center into Excel and print from there
Control Panel > Grade Center > Full Grade Center > Work Offline > Download


View the video at http://screencast.com/t/KTJeKLLAd

There is a little monitor icon in the lower right corner of the video that will make the video show full screen when you click it.

End of Semester To Do List for Blackboard

It's the end of the semester and for those of you using Blackboard there are just a couple of things you still need to do to finish out the semester. You need to make your course unavailable to students and it's a good idea to create a backup of your course so all the student work and your work is archived to your hard drive.

• To make your course unavailable, in your course go to:
  Control Panel > Settings > Course Availability > Make Course Available: No
• To make a backup of your course follow the Archive Your Course Instructions 

Twitter Twaining

Katherine Linzy of the University of Evansville created an excellent guide called "Twitter for Academics - An Introduction" that can be found at http://ots.evansville.edu/support/training/twitterforacademics.pdf.

SafeAssign Slowdowns

Since colleges around the nation are nearing the end of the semester, SafeAssign papers can take as long as two or three days to be evaluated for plagiarism. Fortunately, most are being evaluated within 24 hours. Please plan on these delays as we approach the end of the semester.

Students and Technology

The results of the "ECAR National Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2011 Report" illuminates how technology affects how students learn. Here are some of their key findings:

• Students are drawn to hot technologies, but they rely on more traditional devices
• Students report technology delivers major academic benefits
• Students report uneven perceptions of institutions' and instructors' use of technology
•  Facebook generation students juggle personal and academic interactions
• Students prefer, and say they learn more in, classes with online components    

A slide presentation can be viewed at http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERS1103/ERS1103pdf.pdf.

This slide shows some key findings:

How to Google It

The folks at HackCollege.com have posted a web page with a very large picture that shows students how to get the most out of Google searches. You can find it at http://www.hackcollege.com/blog/2011/11/23/infographic-get-more-out-of-google.html.

"There is a lot more to efficient Googling than you might think: in a recent study on student research skills, 3 out of 4 students couldn't perform a 'well-executed search' on Google. When the success of your term paper hangs in the balance, using Google effectively is crucial, but most students surprisingly just don't know how." 

"Here are some crucial tips for refining your Googling, as well as some other great places to hunt down that last study you need for your thesis."